Push to Banjul

We wake early and it feels even earlier as it is still dark outside. We pack up and say goodbye to the Zebra bar and are off. However we may have still left our brains in the duvet and head the wrong direction. The mistake is spotted after about 20 minutes and we come back and head off in the correct direction.

We are soon on the good roads and hope to get many Km under our belts before having breakfast. We are hoping that we will have a good run today as it is a festival and there should be very few cars on the road. We travel well and when stopped for fuel look for places to buy bread for breakfast. However its still a bit early and there is a sinking feeling in Chris’ stomach that everywhere is going to be closed due to the festival.

However several villages later we find a shop that’s open and get bread. At a convenient spot, well clear of any villages or people we stop for breakfast. The spot is chosen so that we don’t get pestered and we attempt to get it all over with in 30min. The pork and ham cans that we have in the back of the car go well in baked bean sarnies washed down with sweet tea. PO needs to be topped up with water as we are running hot and there is a leak on the waterpump. Feeling fully revitalised we head on and travel through several towns. Whilst doing this we manage to get a decent mobile signal and upload some of the blog posts that have been waiting to go for the last couple of days. We have to run with the heater on in the car which makes it very warm as we are trying to keep the engine cool. Apparently if we don’t feel heat come out of the vents we have run out of water on the system.

The roads do vary in quality and we go through a pot hole that causes the BB to get a flat. When we stop to deal with it we find we have bent our rim and have to do a wheel change. As Colin is tightening up the wheel nuts, Chris and Dean use the lump hammer to straighten the rim on the wheel that has been taken off and it is put back on the roof. The BBs aren’t so luck and have split their alloy, luckily that do have a spare to swap in and we are soon on our way.

The drive is very uneventful and we take a shortcut that should save us at least 50 km, it does the trick and we are ahead of schedule running to the Gambian border. We are getting used to seeing holes in the roads and trucks that crab along the highway and don’t think anything of driving on the wrong side of the road to avoid holes.

As we travel through a larger town we have to pull over and refill the water as we are now running at a temperature that rivals the sun. It’s not long now and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we make it.

Going through another village the BBs find another pot hole that is too much for their wheel. It is fixed by using tyre weld and we have to get on our way quickly. We had pulled up in the middle of a crowed area and have become the street entertainment with everyone asking for gifts or trying to get us to buy stuff. Chris has finally got the satnav working again to waypoint and it isn’t looking too far.

We travel through some interesting curve dips and after ponderance recon they are to stop the road being washed away and allow drainage, they do however make us slow down grrrr. We haven’t encounter many police checks today which is good as they easily take a lot of time.

We arrive at the border to very much all of our surprise as we didn’t realise it wasn’t right by the ferry and it looks like it could be good. Its still daylight and the last ferry is supposed to be 1800.

We go through the usual checks and ignoring the people trying to sell us stuff, buy stuff, change stuff or borrow (cough) stuff. We are still on the same tennis ball on the bonnet that we started with despite the best efforts of the local children.

We are into the no mans land between the two areas and as we start to go through the Gambian customs are accosted by someone who recons he works for the challenge. He appears to be ok as he has our names and team numbers but we haven’t got this far by being complete sheep. He ushers us through customs and we are soon on the way with some of his colleagues to a weigh bridge. When we pull off at this point Dean and the lead man go to get tickets and we are left with a welcoming committee of children and adults. The adults are in badly printed t-shirts that they could have made themselves and some of the convoy remember warnings about guys in t-shirts from the road books. The kids all want “cadeaux” and the adults all want to be best friends with us. Paul stays in the car in case he needs to make a quick brake for freedom. The rest of us have been feeling the drive abit and relax and chat to the people.

Paul fends off many cadeaux requests and one of the little guys decides to pinch him to make him aware of his requests. After this he bites Paul on the elbow right where a sand fly got him when working on the bus. Paul’s shout make the guy run on so quickly there is nearly a trail of flames from his feet!! We however don’t find all this out till later as we are rather spaced.

With the tickets in hand we head off to the ferry and are ushered into a concrete sided loading area. We have heard about this from other challengers in previous years and can understand why you don’t want to be stuck here over night. Our new friends have travelled with us in or on top of the cars. Colin has managed to get one sat on the seat next to him in the front. It makes changing gears rather interesting for Chris. The car is also rather funky as it the fan is on heat windows up and Colin has managed to sit in some muck of some kind and the smell is making Chris nostrils wave the white flag of surrender! We wait for only a short time before the ferry is ready to load and we buy beers off the guides. The end is so close you can nearly taste it.

We roll onto the ferry and Chris for one doesn’t care anymore. After all the planning and all the work we made it. We park so close together the only way to get out the cars is to climb out the windows. We sit on top of our vehicles and drink, we have grins plastered across our faces and no one wants to say anything till we actually get to the finish line. Chris sends afew texts off to let people know we have arrived as he is standing on the back of a low loader. Simon goes to investigate the loo and his face tells an interesting story. It takes him 3 attempts to go in and he can’t understand how anyone can miss so badly on such a short crossing.

We roll off to see our contacts in Gambia and find that the guides are actually sort of genuine..phew but they leave quickly as there are police around. We roll off to a police escort and “man does life feel good”. It’s such a rush of adrenaline, relief and happiness. I don’t think we would ever be able to recreate that moment. As we travel on we realise that we have lost the Minty. We find out later that she ripped her exhaust off on the ferry ramp.

Chris has lost all sense of direction and he and Colin are happily following the car in front like a sheep we arrive at Safari Gardens to be greeted by some of the other residents. We climb on the vehicles and take pictures as well as congratulate each other. Who would have thought we would get this far and something said in half jest can be such an amazing thing.